


Employee Discount

by plumblossomed



Series: SasuSaku Month 2019 [17]
Category: Naruto
Genre: 1k words of dumb, Alternate Universe, F/M, Language, Mall AU, Modern AU, but not enough to be M imo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 23:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19936630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumblossomed/pseuds/plumblossomed
Summary: Sasuke works at Hot Topic and wants to do something new with his look. Sakura from Claire’s knows just the solution: pierce his ears.She pierces his ears AND his heart in the process.





	Employee Discount

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bloomingcosmo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloomingcosmo/gifts).



> has this been done before?? Mall au is so funny to me i don’t own anything at all 
> 
> dedicated to my friend luna because she draws sasuke with an earring and i love it
> 
> and thanks to aliss for the kiba/naruto idea heh

Sasuke rang up the last customer in line and handed them their bag full of merchandise. Working in retail was  _ exhausting  _ and he was more than grateful to be on his 30 minute break _.  _ He wasn’t even a good employee and he was so ready to go home. 

Customers were really testing his patience that day, especially when Kiba and Naruto came in twice to buy glow in the dark condoms. 

“If I tape these to my wall, will it be like those glow in the dark stars we had as kids?” 

“Dude, imagine a glow in the dark condom constellation.” Kiba handed Naruto the smaller size, taking the larger one for himself, “haha Naruto, you have a Little Dipper.”

Even the pre-teens buying rubber bracelets and colorful skinny jeans were more tolerable than those two. 

He called out to his co-worker Suigetsu, “I’m on my 30. Don’t bother me,” before leaving the store in search of a soft pretzel. He didn’t know what they put in those pizza pretzels that made them so good—well, he did know, they used cheese and tomato sauce and pepperonis and shit, but still. They were godly. 

As usual, Rock Lee was enthusiastically handing out free samples while Neji made the pretzels and TenTen manned the register. Sasuke wrinkled his nose when he saw that the samples were the almond covered bites with caramel sauce. Gross. 

He nodded to TenTen for his usual. After he paid and waited for Neji to take the pretzel out of the oven, he noticed the necklace resting on Neji’s chest. “Your necklace is sick, dude. Where’d you buy it?”

Neji handed him the pretzel in a bag and pointed behind Sasuke, “Claire’s. My cousin works there and they actually have cool stuff. You should check it out. Buy from Hinata, she makes commission.” 

Sasuke chomped on his pretzel and nodded, not caring if he burned his mouth. They were best fresh. Maybe he needed some new jewelry, his usual look was getting a bit stale. He didn’t want to be like Lee: signature or not, that green jumpsuit was awful. 

Still munching away, he wandered into Claire’s for the first time. He was going to really have to look to find something as cool as what Neji had on, it looked like a unicorn had vomited over half the store. He was sorting through some simple, silver jewelry when the sales associate asked him, “are you finding everything alright?” 

He turned around, mouth full of pretzel, ready to answer that he was just looking, but holy shit. It was a super  _ pretty _ sales associate. He finished chewing and swallowed before answering, “uhh I just wanna do something new. Got any ideas?” As a fellow retail sufferer, he knew it was annoying to actually help customers, but he decided to be a little selfish and bother her for a bit. 

To his surprise, she perked up. Little did he know, Sakura actually loved talking to customers. How well did they pay at Claire’s? She gestured to the display he had been looking through, “these kinds of simple pieces are really popular with guys lately. But can I make a suggestion?”

He nodded as quickly as he could, eager to hear what she thought. 

“You’d look super hot with your ears pierced.”

Did that mean he was already hot or the earrings would be a game changer? Either way, getting his ears pierced did sound pretty sick. He heard it didn’t even hurt that much. “I’m down. You can do it here, right?”

  
  
Sakura pointed to a chair in the corner, “yup, just sit over there and I’ll be with you in a second! Choose your studs from the board.” 

He had decided on a simple silver stud when Sakura came back with the needle gun. Didn’t they have one of those in the Hot Topic breakroom? 

“Is your hair natural?” he couldn’t help but ask while she prepped. 

Sakura paused while wiping his ears with disinfectant. She nodded towards him in all his bangs-plus-spiky-hair glory, “I could ask the same to you.” 

Point taken. He let her continue doing her job. She was even prettier up close. Her name tag said Sakura. That was a nice name. She seemed nice. 

He remembered he had more pretzel in the bag and took another bite. His chewing made his ears wiggle up and down, though, so Sakura placed a hand on the side of his face, “hold still. It’ll only be a quick pinch.” Her hand was warm and soft, Sasuke didn’t even notice that the nail gun had pierced his ear. His poor pizza pretzel was completely forgotten now. 

Sakura stepped back to admire her handywork. All her soft colors stood out amongst the glaring lights and tacky decor. Sometimes angry moms with awful haircuts came into Hot Topic and accused him of being a devil. Next time he would tell them to go to Claire’s, an angel worked there. 

  
He looked at himself in the mirror she handed him. He  _ did  _ look kinda cool. Sakura started telling him about how often he needed to clean his ears and how long until he could change to a different pair of earrings.    
  
“Can I get your number?” he blurted. When Sakura simply raised an eyebrow at him, he quickly clarified, “I’m not gonna remember all that. Could you text it to me?”

Sakura laughed and turned around to walk towards the register, “maybe next time. For today I’ll let you use my employee discount.” 

* * *

Sasuke visited Sakura on his breaks from then on. She was way more entertaining than the Hot Topic breakroom or the mall food court. He usually brought her an almond covered pretzel with caramel sauce when he got his pizza one. Her manager, Tsunade, didn’t care as long as he brought a lemonade slushy for her too.

“Sakura, you never told me your new boyfriend is an e-boy?”

Sasuke didn’t know what an e-boy was, but if E stood for emo he was going to lose it. 

**Author's Note:**

> as always i hope my dumb jokes land well or i’ll be embarrassed. Happy birthday emo king


End file.
